Jimmermania struck the Bayi Rockets on Friday as Jimmer Fredette cracked the 50-point mark for the third time in the last 10 days as the Shanghai Sharks came away with the 87-72 come-from-behind win.

Fredette tied his season high with 54 points on 22-for-34 shooting from the floor, including 8-for-17 from 3-point land and 2-for-2 from the foul line. He also chipped in with eight rebounds, three steals and a pair of assists in 44 minutes.

After a slow start that saw them trail by as many as 11 late in the first quarter, Jimmer got going and almost singlehandedly brought the Sharks back into the game.

He scored nine points in a four minute span to close the quarter as Shanghai cut the deficit to five at the end of one. His most impressive bucket during that stretch came on a nifty baseline drive where he got his defender up in the air on a pump fake and stepped through for the easy bank shot. He also got to the bucket and finished a contested lay-up and connected on his first three of the night from straight away.

As good as he was at the end the first, Fredette was even better in the second scoring 16 of his team’s 25 points as the Sharks went into the half tied at 43.

He started out his second quarter scoring barrage as he switched hands to split a double-team before hitting a tough reverse lay-up. After an uncontested lay-up in transition, he hit a three off the dribble before getting to the basket and finishing with a finger roll.

Following a floater in the lane, he hit a baseline fadeaway before capping off his second quarter with a pull-up three from the top of the key.

Jimmer added 12 points in the third quarter, including a pair of threes during a 9-0 run as the Sharks opened up a nine-point lead.

He then closed the game in fine fashion as he added three more 3-pointers on his way to 15 fourth-quarter points before sitting the final couple of minutes of the win.

No other player scored more than seven points for the Sharks.

Zuming Zhang led the way for the Rockets with 22 points on 8-for-14 shooting from the floor while Zhonghao Xu added 20 points, 15 rebounds and three blocks.

With the road win, Shanghai improves to 6-3 on the season heading into a two-week break for FIBA World Cup qualifying.

On the season, Fredette is averaging 40.1 points a game on 45 percent shooting from 2-point range, 46 percent from beyond the arc and 93 percent from the foul line. He is also adding 7.6 rebounds, 5.4 assists and 2.1 steals in 42.3 minutes a game.

Photo credit: By Bagumba (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

Video credit: SPNJRT – The Lonely Master Highlights